>
>
>Date:    Thu, 20 May 2004 15:58:26 +0100
>From:    heather <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Guilt, the sidetracking of the real issues
>
>
>
>>>Guilt??? The mother of smokescreens that cancels any rational discussion of
>>>the issues of infant feeding.
>>>Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC
>>
>>
>
>
>I don't agree with this, Valerie...or perhaps I have misunderstood.
>
>... The way in which we support women without making
>them feel personally at fault  about decisions or choices that were
>taken away from them, is a crucial to any discussion of how we
>protect and promote breastfeeding....surely.
>
>I repeat: I am in favour of mothers, at all stages, learning and
>understanding the risks of infant formula. But to say, as someone did
>here a few days, ago, that mothers who do not breastfeed 'should feel
>guilty'  is to be on a different planet from the one I want to be on!
>Why not purse our lips, sniff,  and tell them 'they should be ashamed
>of themselves' and complete the job? <TIC>
>
>Heather Welford Neil
>
I agree with Heather -- as most of you know :-)

I sometimes wonder about how rational the discussion is on either side
once we mention guilt... as soon as someone says "I am not in favour of
doing anything that could cause guilt," I would say the discussion
becomes very one-sided. I often leave the discussions feeling
misunderstood.

Please -- let's try to accept different points of view!

Some of us have devoted our lives to doing everything from preventing
human rights abuse or promoting (life-saving) cross-cultural
understanding without ever resorting to language of fear (risk),
coercion (lack of choice) or guilt (personal responsibility for
"non-compliance" with whatever is the norm. Whether or not we are
effective or successful in our approach may be hard to judge. But if we
believe we need to "be the change we want to see" than helping people to
be sensitive and altruistic means not resorting to certain kinds of
practices.

Some of us have strong feelings about using ethical practices. To set up
advertising campaign or even focus groups as the standard that
determines how we should approach real people is pretty obscene, as far
as I am concerned. Whether they work or not, whether they are used for
other things, fear, coercion and guilt are not motivators that I want to
use, with my children or with perfect strangers. And whether it is
"intentional" use or a means to an end, it is still using guilt to say,
"Because you bottle-fed your baby, he is not as intelligent as he could
be." So the felt message is what? Quite likely, it is "I have failed. I
am not capable of succeeding." There is no justification for hurting
people, especially when we are in a position of power. We know the
information, and we provide the support. That gives us power and
responsibility. We should not use it without deep reflection about the
attitudes we are modelling. We can choose to model "means to an end"
thinking (such as that used in advertising, i.e. that any means that is
effective in selling an idea or product is fine, so anything that is
said in an attempt to get women to breastfeed). Or we can choose to help
women learn to do what is best for them and their babies, and that means
modelling that you do *not* know what is best, that *they* do. Granted,
this isn't always attention-getting stuff, and we can't learn much about
it from advertisers.

Just my very humble opinion.
Jo-Anne Elder-Gomes, PhD




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